D&D General The longer I play Baldur's Gate 3 ...

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

... the more I'm amazed that WotC didn't put out a digital product, like Gale's Guide to the Magic of Baldur's Gate or something, collecting the dozens of new magic items, handful of variant spells, handful of new monsters, etc., from the game. The game stats are already 99% of the way to conventional 5E stats and would need basically a light editing pass to get them ready, and Larian for sure has a bunch of concept art of items that they could use to illustrate the book.

Even if they have a revenue sharing agreement with Larian on this material (which would surprise me), it's a revenue stream for Q1 2024. As far as we know, WotC isn't selling any new books between now and March, other than Book of Many Things, which only accidentally ended up in this quarter.

 

[Leatherhead]

Unfortunately, a few of ideas from the game snuck into UA playtests before the game was finalized, only to be rejected. Which no doubt tainted the idea of mining BG3 for content.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yup I think one could house BG3 stuff in.

Lots more magic items for example than typical D&D.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Timing. It takes about two years from concept to release of a WotC book, and BG3 was expected to be about as successful as other D&D computer games (I.e. sink without trace). There may be BG3 tie-in books, but they won't appear until 2025.

There is a BG3 tie-in book of course - Decent to Avernus. This was written whilst BG3 was in development as a collaboration between Larian and WotC. The development time for a computer game is even longer (and less predictable) than for a print book.

That's the nature of buisiness. You can't pull products out of thin air, and you can't predict when something is going to be a freakish mega-hit.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Lots more magic items for example than typical D&D.

That's just the nature of CRPGs. They all have far more magic items than in PnP games, it's always been like that since the Gold Box days.

And a lot of BG3 items are not viable in tabletop. E.g. items that accumulate "spark charges". Such things require too much bookkeeping for tabletop.

 

[Zardnaar]

That's just the nature of CRPGs. They all have far more magic items than in PnP games, it's always been like that since the Gold Box days.

And a lot of BG3 items are not viable in tabletop. E.g. items that accumulate "spark charges". Such things require too much bookkeeping for tabletop.

Yeah current build is messing around with lightning charges act 1.

 

[jgsugden]

While they could drop something like this on the DM Guild in a much shorter window, it would not be a great idea. While the video game does a great job of giving players an RPG like experience - it is not an RPG experience and the balance of the items in the game is different than in RPG. There are a lot of items that are outstanding in the game - but implementing them in real time in an RPG would be a nightmare for DMs and players.

DM: "The skeleton mindlessly charges towards you and steps into your Spirit Guardians radius... and fails the save."

Player: "12 radiant. That triggers Radiating Orb from my Luminous Armor to each creating in 10 feet and 2 Radiating Orbs to the Skeleton because of the Luminous Gloves. As this is spell damage, my Coruscating Ring triggers and applies 2 more Radiating Orbs. I think that also triggers my Callous Glow Ring ..."

DM: "Nope. That only triggers on attacks. And I'm not so sure about the Coruscating Ring triggering ... where is the light source?"

Player: "You said there was sunlight streaming through a hole in the ceiling. I thoughts I was in it....?

DM: "Nope, but you would have been if you were over there. Let's just move you and the skeleton to say you went there on your last turn...."

Player: "Oh, OK ... but I think I'd have made a different choice if I knew I'd be so close to the giant yeti skeletons, too. Regardless ... So was that ... 4 Radiating Orbs on the skeleton and 1 on everything else within 10 feet. Right? But wait, now the ogre zombies are not within the 10 foot radius!"

That type of accounting and fine details was intentionally limited (but not entirely avoided) in the design of 5E. Imagine the above scenario with a bunch of monsters with flyby attack diving in and out of the Spirit Guardians. Additionally, the game is angled to up your power level dramatically over a typical 5E PC as you go above 8th level and towards 12th.

Dropping a few iconic pieces from BG3 into RPG in the next edition would be a fun nod - but the overall design of BG3 isn't quite right for tabletop.

 

[GMMichael]

. . . Decent to Avernus . . .

Well, that was the shortest review I've ever seen!

Just kidding.

Anyway, I'd expect a BG3 tie-in after 6e comes out.

 

[MockingBird]

While they could drop something like this on the DM Guild in a much shorter window, it would not be a great idea. While the video game does a great job of giving players an RPG like experience - it is not an RPG experience and the balance of the items in the game is different than in RPG. There are a lot of items that are outstanding in the game - but implementing them in real time in an RPG would be a nightmare for DMs and players.

DM: "The skeleton mindlessly charges towards you and steps into your Spirit Guardians radius... and fails the save."

Player: "12 radiant. That triggers Radiating Orb from my Luminous Armor to each creating in 10 feet and 2 Radiating Orbs to the Skeleton because of the Luminous Gloves. As this is spell damage, my Coruscating Ring triggers and applies 2 more Radiating Orbs. I think that also triggers my Callous Glow Ring ..."

DM: "Nope. That only triggers on attacks. And I'm not so sure about the Coruscating Ring triggering ... where is the light source?"

Player: "You said there was sunlight streaming through a hole in the ceiling. I thoughts I was in it....?

DM: "Nope, but you would have been if you were over there. Let's just move you and the skeleton to say you went there on your last turn...."

Player: "Oh, OK ... but I think I'd have made a different choice if I knew I'd be so close to the giant yeti skeletons, too. Regardless ... So was that ... 4 Radiating Orbs on the skeleton and 1 on everything else within 10 feet. Right? But wait, now the ogre zombies are not within the 10 foot radius!"

That type of accounting and fine details was intentionally limited (but not entirely avoided) in the design of 5E. Imagine the above scenario with a bunch of monsters with flyby attack diving in and out of the Spirit Guardians. Additionally, the game is angled to up your power level dramatically over a typical 5E PC as you go above 8th level and towards 12th.

Dropping a few iconic pieces from BG3 into RPG in the next edition would be a fun nod - but the overall design of BG3 isn't quite right for tabletop.

As I've been playing through BG3 (on xbox so I'm a couple months behind) I've been thinking of all the YouTube videos I've seen. The videos would talk about how this is what 5e should become. As I play it I can't help but to think, no this would be too much fiddly stuff. I've been enjoying BG3 very much but I definitely wouldn't want to keep up with all of it at the table.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Timing. It takes about two years from concept to release of a WotC book, and BG3 was expected to be about as successful as other D&D computer games (I.e. sink without trace). There may be BG3 tie-in books, but they won't appear until 2025.

There is a BG3 tie-in book of course - Decent to Avernus. This was written whilst BG3 was in development as a collaboration between Larian and WotC. The development time for a computer game is even longer (and less predictable) than for a print book.

That's the nature of buisiness. You can't pull products out of thin air, and you can't predict when something is going to be a freakish mega-hit.

Add to the above that Larian have a reputation of releasing a game when it is done, when ever that is. Also they were impacted by Covid and pretty much (as I understand it) re-wrote act One due to Early Access feedback.